October slide is happening because yields are rising (slightly) again. Give it a week or two and they'll forget. All the better for me, I would be buying some Fidelity CDs but I have no interest in boosting my taxable income at this point.

I'm happy to see that my individual stocks are performing significantly better than my indexes.
In today's environment, I'm also happy I own 0% USA indexes and 0% bonds (the one asset I wouldn't buy under any circumstance today thinking about the long term)
Europe and emerging seem priced somewhat fairly, so if they keep getting cheaper that's only good news: I have to stay disciplined and not buy too much too soon.

If you are a stock investor and panic / go all cash for a blip this small you should really reevaluate your asset allocation because you're likely to just hurt yourself.

@ Seppia - when sentiment changes, high growth, high PE small caps go down like a rock. With these kinds of stocks, it's usually better to sell first and then ask questions, i.e. you can always re-enter when the dust settles and outlook improves. On Tue morning I was not expecting to sell anything, by today I was taken out of 5 of my 10 positions after they hit stops. No panic selling involved, just 'natural' change in asset allocation in reaction to market conditions.

Sorry bankai for the misunderstanding, I wasn't referring to your investing strategy in particular.
I remember we discussed this and you have a very different approach than I have: I'm not questioning your moves, just the rather curious fact that a bunch of index investors who are in theory in "for the long run" are already re-thinking their supposedly immovable asset allocation after a very trivial drop
My circle of friends and the media are already full of such people.
It puzzles me every time

Yeah, I'm wondering if a 'total oblivion' strategy might paradoxically be optimal for index investors. I.e. since we know that investor is her own greatest enemy, the strategy of not checking any financial news and deliberately losing the password to her brokerage account might prevent her from shooting her own foot.

IIRC, it's low debt (under industry average or just under 30%), high ROE, a dividend over 2%, and a rating that's 4/5 or better. It's pretty hard to have all those at the same time. Right now, it's mostly revealing auto-part retailers, chip makers, and a few mining companies which is not concordant with my "other" understanding of where the economy is... so I continue to invest in cash.

Big picture, nothing was solved after 08/09. Crisis was averted, but we're still in all the predicaments we found us in then(households/governments indebted, eurozone a mess, low growth, high inequality, asset bubbles). Some things are marginally bettter, sure, and the doomsday predictions proved to be false. But no issue is really taken care of.

Currently all assets in my AA(global large cap, global small cap, domestic mid cap, emerging markets equity, precious metals(mostly gold)) are below their 200DMA in my local currency. Interesting to see wether I'll be all cash come rebalancing date.

I'm fairly pessimisting about the next decade, but to say that "nothing was solved" seems a tad strong.
The USA has the lowest unemployment rate in years (decades?), banks have much less leverage, and the S&P has experienced a 200+% rally from the lows in 2009.
The next cisis will definitely not look like the past one (they never do).
The euro zone is a mess for multiple reasons, but I'm fairly confident in saying that the austerity measures played a major role: this to say that I believe without zirp the world would be in a worse place than it is now.